


Life Is Strange In Inaba

by yosgay



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game), Persona 4, Persona Series
Genre: M/M, life is strange au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-10 04:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5570236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yosgay/pseuds/yosgay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's almost funny, because this doesn't even look real, and if he squints his eyes a little against the torrent of rain on his face, he can even pretend that he's just playing some video game, and that this choice won't affect him, not really. That he won't carry it the rest of his life. He can almost pretend that if he twitches his fingers right, a menu screen will come up, pause everything around him, so he can take out the fucking disc, break it in half, and be done with it. But when he looks back up, Yosuke's eyes meet his, and the fear and dread swirling in them faster than the tornado looming over their small town brings him swiftly back to reality. </p><p>They can't run from this. </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> more of a life is strange ending AU. pretty much just the situation without the time travel just to torture myself

They fucked up. 

They really, really fucked up, and Souji has no fucking idea how he's going to fix it. There's no way the rest of them don't know they caused this — you don't exactly have to be Naoto to put the supernatural, weird-shit pieces together. If there was any other explanation, Souji would jump on it, and there isn't. But he won't admit it. Not to any of them. Except, maybe...

"Yosuke," he barely breathes the other boy's name, and he doesn't know why he's whispering. There's no way he can hear Souji over all this hell, when Souji can barely hear himself  _think_. It's almost funny, because this doesn't even look real, and if he squints his eyes a little against the torrent of rain on his face, he can even pretend that he's just playing some video game, and that this choice won't affect him, not really. That he won't carry it the rest of his life. He can almost pretend that if he twitches his fingers right, a menu screen will come up, pause everything around him, so he can take out the fucking disc, break it in half, and be done with it. But when he looks back up, Yosuke's eyes meet his, and the fear and dread swirling in them faster than the tornado looming over their small town brings him swiftly back to reality.

They can't run from this. 

A thousand gods whisper between his temples, that ever-present white noise staying constant every day since April, echoing the same plea that twitches at the ends of nerves and muscle — to  _run_. Grab Yosuke's hand, find a car, and  _go_. He winces inwardly at how calloused he knows he's being, when there are six other people still trapped here that the word  _friend_  doesn't even come close to doing justice, and two family members and countless acquaintances he holds dear in this town that he's willfully overlooking, for someone he's only just  _barely_  acknowledged his feelings for. Souji knows what that must look like from an outside perspective, but this kind of thing doesn't _happen_. Not to him. And as much as he would like to believe in his altruistic side, he knows better. Before he'd even known there  _was_  a decision, he'd already made his choice. 

———

 _This is nice_ , Souji thinks to himself, the pleasantly warm September sun beating down on him at the Junes food court. The smile on his face, however small, comes easily, reflected in the 7 others around him. Everyone yelling and laughing, talking and even sometimes blushing. They’re all so easy to read, even if some  _think_  they’re mysterious and cryptic, but, oddly, this doesn’t annoy Souji. They don’t bore him like everyone else in his life. There weren't too many people back in the city (or anywhere else, for that matter) that he had taken a genuine liking to, let alone an entire group. He’s still a little new at all this, but just like everything else, he takes it in stride.

Things really are going well. Naoto had recovered much faster than they had all anticipated, and though she looks pretty tired, it seems like she’s hanging in there. She’s loosening up just fine with everyone, seeming to find her place easily amidst the group. Souji is glad to see their little family grow, no matter how foreign a thought that ordinarily would be to someone like him.

He takes a deep breath in, linking his fingers behind his back and stretching slightly. The weather really is beautiful. They haven’t been able to enjoy it much lately, with all their time in the TV world. Souji didn’t know what would happen next with how crazy things have been, so he was sure to set aside as much time as they needed to train and collect everything they would need, but he also knew that they needed a break. Rescuing Naoto had been no easy feat, and he can still feel the ghostly zip of that last Ziodyne from her Shadow that had nearly taken him out. He hasn’t stopped kicking himself for switching to Triglav at the last second. His hair sometimes still feels like someone’s holding a balloon a little too close.

He closes his eyes and lets out a slow breath, folding his hands over his chest, letting everyone’s presence wash over him. He really didn’t need them, didn’t even want them when he’d come here in the spring, but having friends is… good. It’s a nice change of pace. None of them should actually get along on paper, and most of them hadn’t even  _known_  each other until they got roped into all this craziness. That’s why he never minded when the staff at Junes quirked an eyebrow at their ragtag little gang, muttering confusion under their breath as they shuffled by. He probably would too. The thought makes him chuckle, and it suddenly sounds too loud until he realizes that everyone has gone quiet. He opens his eyes again and his mouth to inquire, when something cold and wet lands on his cheek. When he raises his hand to examine it, another falls on his fingertip. He stares at it dubiously, and looks at the rest of them, eyebrows pinched in and mouth hanging open around a half-formed question. It’s snowing. It’s 75 degrees outside, just at the end of summer, and it’s  _snowing_. Souji wouldn’t have believed it, but another one falls and hits him dead in the eye.

“What in the world,” Naoto murmurs, looking up wondrously. “At this time of year… unprecedented…” she trails off.

“T-The hell…” Kanji stands with both palms facing upwards, catching the little white flakes and inspecting them as if they’re clues to the case. Souji feels cold dread pool in his stomach, but he has no idea why. At least, he  _hopes_  he has no idea why. The weather has been a little off, the normalcy of today looking odd against the trend. The fog, unseasonably warm turning unseasonably cool, and now this. They _were_ helping, weren’t they…? Everything seems darker all of the sudden, and Souji shakes his head a little and blinks hard, thinking it’s just him, when Rise gasps “no _way_ ,” and drops her open water bottle on the ground. Souji turns his head and shields his eyes, stomach dropping into his fucking feet.

_A solar eclipse?_

———

Souji flies up from his pillow with his breath coming in gasps, and clutches his head in his hands. His eyes are wrenched shut and he’s grabbing fistfuls of hair, tugging a little harder than he should to be sure that he’s _here_ , in bed, in his house. He can still feel the pounding rain in the sweat drenching his forehead, the howling wind in the ceiling fan that he left up too high, and the surging adrenaline from every nerve ending on high alert. That was so fucking _real_ , he’s not even quite sure what to do about it, and barely even registers his own actions as he’s feeling around for his phone in the darkness. While it rings, he drags a hand down his face and tries to slow his breathing, to not be so out of sorts. It isn’t like him.

“Partner?” The voice comes groggy from the other line. Souji isn’t even sure what time it is, but he knows it must be late, and he feels a little guilty, but something’s wrong here. He never really has dreams, just sort of lays there tossing and turning until the gray waves behind his eyes turn black and suck him down under into the current, and then before he knows it, morning is there. For him, sleeping never really felt like sleeping, it always just sort of felt like blinking. This was too real. Something is _wrong_.

“Hey,” he says, and his voice sounds so small in the echo of their shitty countryside connection. “Bad dream?” Yosuke mumbles, not totally coherent yet, but Souji hears some shuffling and then the click of a light switch, and sighs. Now he’ll be up for the rest of the night. Nice going, Seta, way to handle it. Disgust pools at the base of his throat at how _weak_ this all is, but he swallows it down.

“Yeah. Bad dream,” he says, bunching up the hem of his night shirt between nervous fingers. “Sorry to wake you. ‘Night.” He pulls the phone from between his shoulder and moves a finger behind the head to flip it closed, but he hears a muffled “wait” from the speaker, and places it tentatively back against his ear.

“Partner? You wanna tell me about it?” he sounds more lucid now, and the concern coloring his voice presses Souji on with a little huff.

“Yosuke I don’t… know if I can even describe it but…” he starts, at a loss. Fully awake, this actually seems pretty fucking stupid. Everybody has weird, realistic dreams at some point, don’t they? It’s really nothing to call somebody in a panic over like some scared 10-year-old calling their mother from a sleep over. But something still seems off to him, so he continues. “Okay… I was um, walking through this forest. It looked like the way to the beach at Okina, you know where I mean?” He hears a small hum of assent, and goes on. “It was… crazy. Fallen trees everywhere and raining harder than I’ve ever seen, with lightning and everything, and I could _feel_ it, y’know? Every drop of it,” he was talking like he was in a rush, some words tripping over each other, like if he didn’t get it out now, he’d lose it. “I was chasing some deer through all of this, like it was leading me to the shore. But dude, when I got there, there was this massive fucking tornado, and I couldn’t _do_ anything, and then a tree fell right on me dude, right fucking on me, and my arm was just fucking _shattered_ , I'm serious,  _and I could feel the splinters in my hands —_ ”

“Souji dude, _slow down_ ,” Yosuke interrupts, worry saturating his tone. Souji stops abruptly and realizes he’s shaking. This feeling, this absolute _terror_ won’t go away, and it feels foreboding and impending and _warning_ , and Souji doesn’t have time to hold back the choking sound that escapes from his throat before he flips the phone shut.

He breathes out raggedly, clenching his teeth against another sob, and quickly taps out a text to pacify Yosuke so he doesn’t run down here in his pajamas or something. He draws his arms and legs in close and digs his fingers into the soft skin of his forearms to stop this fucking shaking already, and his eyes fly open wide when he hears Izanagi’s unmistakable voice rise above the familiar humming with one word:

“ _Go_.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Did you really think it would be that easy?"_

Souji has to keeping reminding himself how to breathe. He’s having trouble remembering how to send the signals from his brain to his chest to expand around the lump in his throat, around the despair threatening to collapse his spine. It’s like all the wind from the storm is being sucked directly out of his lungs to tear at trees and shingles of their sleepy little town. Yosuke sees his eyelashes flutter and rushes to his side.

“Souji, Souji!” his voice breaks as he gasps out the words, struggling to rise over the thunder. “Partner, can you hear me? _Say something!_ ”

Souji blinks blearily against the rain hammering down on him, matting his bangs to his forehead. “I must have… passed out,” he says it like it’s a question, and his tongue feels like cotton in his mouth. He tries to get to his feet slowly and settles for sitting when his head pounds like a fucking drum. He rubs his temples, sobering up as soon as he sees that the tornado is still fucking there — a bigger tornado than he’s ever _seen_ , in pictures, on the fucking Discovery Channel, _anywhere_. He didn’t even know they could _get_ that big.

“Oh, thank God,” Yosuke breathes, relief flooding his features. “Don’t ever do that again, okay?” He’s forceful, not even trying to hide the panic on his face. He helps Souji to his feet, and they look on helplessly at the mammoth twisting in front of them, whipping branches and sign posts past like fucking feathers in a breeze. 

“I swear… but that nightmare was so _real_ ,” Souji says, his voice sounding strangled, and he could _swear_ that he feels the jet stream being ripped from his own throat out to the sea. He knows it wasn’t a nightmare, no matter how jarring Igor’s face can be. He was there, in the Velvet Room, tearing at the plush blue carpeting with his fingernails, screaming his head off, begging, that there _has_ to be another way. He can’t choose this. He can’t do this. He _won’t_ do this. 

“This is _my_ storm,” he bellows, voice breaking as he wails. “I caused _all_ of this!” His face opens like a waterfall, distorting his tone until he doesn't even recognize the sound anymore.

“Fuck all of that! You were given a power, we _all_ were. We didn’t ask for it. And you _saved_ us, a hundred times!” Yosuke’s face is fierce, determined. “Okay, so you’re not the god damn perfect fearless leader. But you’re Souji fucking Seta, and you’re _amazing._ ”

Souji can't look at him anymore. Yosuke knows what’s to come, but he can’t change it. Souji is the _only_ one who can change this, and he squeezes his eyes shut against the thought, stomach lurching, feeling himself on the edge of hysterical. His cheeks are numb, and his throat is a sandpaper desert in the summer. He’s soaked down to the skin and, after tonight, he doesn't think the chill will ever leave his bones.

“Souji,” Yosuke’s hands are firm on his shoulders, forcing him to stare at his eyes. They’re red-rimmed and swollen, tears mixing with the rain and dripping off of his face. “You could go back… she gave you that choice, didn’t she? You could go back, and _stop_ all of this. All it would take… is for me to… t-to…” He looks away and presses the heals of his hands against his eyes.

“ _Stop!_ ” Souji screams wildly, completely losing his composure. He grips Yosuke’s arms hard enough to bruise. “Fuck that, I _won’t_ trade you!” He’s almost hyperventilating now, short little bursts of air mixed with water that aren’t nearly enough to fill his lungs, and it burns on the way down. This can’t happen. He can’t lose Yosuke. _He can’t do this._

“You’re _not_ trading me!” Yosuke yells, arms swept wide from his sides. “Maybe you’re just… delaying my true destiny.” Souji chokes on a sob and buries his face in his hands. His legs won’t hold him anymore, and he collapses onto the mud. “What about _them?_ They deserve so much more than to be killed by a fucking storm,” Yosuke spits out the words like they’re acid on his tongue. “There are so many people in Inaba that deserve to live! Way more than me,” Yosuke crouches down and wraps his arms around Souji, hiccuping and convulsing under the weight of his words. Souji grabs a fistful of his drenched sweatshirt and tangles another hand in sopping wet hair, whispering “ _no_ ” over and over again, like a mantra, like a prayer. 

“I can’t make this choice,” he barely gets out between whimpers, his face buried in Yosuke’s chest.

“No, Souji,” Yosuke whispers, holding him tighter. “You’re the only one who can.”

———

"I'm sensing another new area, a little over to our left," Rise says, looking through Himiko's eyes. "And this world's grown larger," she adds, and then hesitates as the Persona fades away in sparkling little spots of light behind her.

"...Is there anything else, Rise-chan?" Yukiko asks slowly, an arm across her torso, gripping her opposite wrist a little too hard, feathery-red fan closed up in her grasp.

"It's...  _bad_ ," she says quietly. "I don't know how to put it, but... something’s —"

"Something smells rotten!" Teddie exclaims, giving the air a big, dramatic sniff and bouncing around them all like a cartoon.

"I don't get it. What are we  _dealing_  with here?" Chie bounces a little on the balls of her feet impatiently, heavy armored boots clinking. "What's with all... this?" She gestures vaguely, eyes anxiously twitching around the staging area of the TV world — which is notably foggier than usual. Even through his glasses, Souji finds himself squinting to see the outlines of a few further bodies painted on the floor.

"I can barely see my damn nose in here," Yosuke complains, but hidden in his voice is real worry. "What the hell good are these glasses doing, Ted?" His arms are rigid at his sides, weight shifting between one leg and the other as he taps his foot to some off-beat rhythm. His knuckles are turning white around his kunai. Kanji hums a frustrated noise of a agreement, and shoves his hands in the pockets of his uniform pants as his teeth chew at his lower lip. They're all on edge.

"It doesn't... feel the same, if I could put it that way," Naoto says to no one in particular, adjusting the brim of her hat for the tenth time. "When I found myself in this place prior, not only was the fog thinner, but less... oppressive, perhaps. There's a malice here that wasn't before." 

Souji feels a chill go up his spine, and he shivers just slightly. The thought that this world, which has tried —  _and nearly succeeded —_  in killing them all at least once, could somehow have become  _more_  malicious, is terrifying. But he can feel it too, he has to admit. He can feel it coiling in his chest along with the tendrils of fog creeping around his legs. It's going right through him, and he suppresses another shiver at the thought. 

"Ready to go investigate, Senpai?" Rise asks, usual bubbly optimism replaced with a quiet determination, and the eight of them step somberly into the fog.

———

“God’s Hand!” Chie shouts, with more energy than any of the rest of them could even pretend to have at this point. It seems like they've been fighting for hours, the life sapped from their veins and flooded back in again by the tiny, bitter seeds Souji keeps giving them. Peach Seeds or no, Mediarahan or no, this is all fucking _exhausting_. 

An eerily transparent golden fist materializes above the enormous bandaged goddess pulsing power in front of them, and hits with a _crack_ that reverberates down to bone. Her shriek is muffled slightly by the bandages wrapping around her mouth, sharp and final, and she crashes to the ground she hovered over. The whole team is battered, Yukiko holding her side and Kanji’s arm wrapped around Naoto’s waist for support, and they all nearly fall over as the weight of victory seeps into their skin.

“We… we d-did it,” Yosuke breathes, wincing from the direct hit that dislocated his jaw — that Yukiko could just barely heal. Incredulous laughter ripples through the eight of them, the realization of what they’ve done buckling Souji’s knees and pricking his eyes. This is all over, and Souji can’t wipe the stupid, giddy grin off of his face. As his eyes sweep the others, he finds them in the same state. Nobody can even believe it. Everything they’ve worked for, fought for, nearly _died_ for, is finally, _finally_ over. His eyes meet Yosuke’s and they gravitate towards each other like planets, and _god,_ Souji doesn’t even care that they’re here, that everybody can see — he wraps his arms around Yosuke and doesn’t let go, half-drunk on happiness, soaking tears into the shoulder of his white coat.

“We fuckin’ did it!” Kanji proclaims. She’s not even twitching anymore, laying in a crumpled heap on the ground. _They really did it._

“Yeah,” Rise says through her tears, her face barely able to contain the smile. “We finally —  _ah!_ ” And then she’s on her knees, holding her head and screaming this ear-splitting, _agonizing_ scream out of nowhere, Himiko ripping through her mind and it’s all a blur to Souji until he’s at her side, shaking her shoulders and trying to pry her hands from her ears, yelling for her to calm down, it’s okay, it’s _okay_ , Izanami’s dead, please stop, _for fuck’s sake Rise wake up!_

Her eyes roll back into her head and her voice is just a choking raspy sound where she’s still trying to shriek, but nothing’s coming out, and Yukiko is sapping the last of her energy to heal her but it’s not fucking _working_ , and then the booming, other-worldly voice of what they assume is Himiko echoes harshly inside each of their minds at the same time.

“ _Did you really think it would be that easy?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well this is becoming A Thing and how do u actually organize jumping from the past to the future oh well. thank u for reading

**Author's Note:**

> probably not a whole lot of chapters, and i'm gonna try to update weekly!! thank u and goodnight


End file.
